Monday, August 24, 1998 Last modified at 12:35 a.m. on Monday, August 24, 1998

Al Fayed now places blame for fatal car crash on his former bodyguards

PARIS (AP) - The billionaire father of Princess Diana's boyfriend now blames his ex-bodyguards for the car crash that killed Diana and his son, Dodi, after insisting for months a conspiracy was behind the crash.

Mohamed Al Fayed said former bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones and Alexander Wingfield were responsible for the midnight crash last August "through their incompetence and unprofessional practices."

"They had rules and they moved away from the rules. They let me down," Al Fayed, owner of Harrod's department store in London and the Ritz Hotel in Paris, was quoted by Time magazine as saying in an interview published Sunday.

It was from the Ritz that Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed left in a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes the night of Aug. 31, shortly before the car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel along the Seine River.

Al Fayed's lawyers say the bodyguards should have insisted on a backup car and should not have allowed driver Henri Paul to take the route he did.

They also say Rees-Jones, the sole survivor of the crash, should have insisted that Diana and Fayed wear a seat belt as he did, according to the Time article.

Investigators have focused been focusing on several factors, including evidence that Paul, who worked for the Ritz, was drunk, driving the Mercedes at a high speed and trying to evade press photographers.

"Mr. Wingfield is saddened that he should choose the buildup to the first anniversary of the crash to make such absurd comments," Waddington added.

According to the Telegraph, both Rees-Jones and Wingfield have insisted they objected to the drive they say Dodi Fayed planned, in part because it lacked a backup car.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph reported that Wingfield, who left the hotel that night in a decoy car, is to take Al Fayed to court next week, claiming he was forced to quit after he refused to back up Al Fayed's conspiracy theory.

In addition, there were indications that Rees-Jones, who has since resigned from his job with Al Fayed, could change his story.

Rees-Jones was expected to meet with investigative Judge Herve Stephan in Paris.

His French lawyer, Christian Curtil, asked Stephan in June to question top Ritz managers about possible security lapses and about how much they knew of Paul's condition.

Six months ago, Rees-Jones said Paul didn't appear drunk the night of the crash.